This invention relates to garments worn by operating room personnel for the maintenance of sterile conditions. In particular, it relates to hoods for the prevention or containment of bacterial fallout from the heads of the medical personnel into the operating field.
It is a continuing problem in hospital operating rooms to prevent bacterial contamination and to maintain a sterile operating field. Two specific aspects of this problem are bacterial fallout from the heads of the operating room personnel, and bacterial contamination from their exhaled breath. The problem of contamination from exhaled breath has conventionally been met by wearing a standard surgical mask. A more elaborate solution has been the use of a laminar air flow face plate to cover the entire face; a suction system is used with the face plate to remove exhaled breath from under the plate. Caps and hoods are widely used to cover the hair of the operating room personnel to contain the bacterial fallout; however, in operations demanding the highest degree of aseptic conditions, such head coverings have not been fully satisfactory when worn in combination with a face plate and vacuum system.
In general, caps cover too little of the wearer's head to be fully effective, and they do not seal against the face plate as is necessary to provide a complete barrier between the wearer and the patient. while hoods can be provided to cover the entire head, they generally have been unsatisfactory for other reasons. They are generally made of an inelastic material such as woven cloth. They must be made big enough initially to be put on over the wearer's head with the face plate in position, and as a result are bulky and include excess material when they have been put on. The excess material bunches and accumulates in folds which form open regions at the edges of hood. These open regions allow bacterial fallout, particularly around the face opening, which does not conform adequately to the face plate, and around the neck or shoulder edge of the hood.
These problems are even more severe if the same hood is worn with a traditional surgical mask alone without the face plate; the same quantity of material than covers a smaller volume and folds and bunching are increased.
It is an object of this invention to provide an inexpensive disposable surgical hood that conforms to the head and face of the wearer for effective containment of bacterial fallout.
It is a further object to provide such a hood that can be worn either with a traditional surgical mask alone, or with a laminar air flow face plate and vacuum system, and is effective to contain bacterial fallout from the wearer's head in either type of use.